How do you say "This soup is tasteless" in Chinese?

[reinard_wu]

Imagine that you are at the restaurant, and you ordered some soup. When you taste the soup, the soup is tasteless (not enough salt). How do you say "This soup is tasteless" in Chinese, using the most common way to say it.

[imron]

Do you want them to add more salt or do you just want to make a general statement about the tastelessness of the soup?

[Wurstmann]

汤太淡了

[abcdefg]

I think the way that @Wurstmann suggested, just above, would work, even though it usually means something closer to "this soup is too weak, too bland."

 

Recently, the past few days, I've been on a quest, diligently researching the issue of tea eggs 茶叶蛋 not having enough flavor. Have read several blog posts and internet columns about the issue of their being relatively tasteless. The titles of these native-speaker commentaries usually contain 味道。

 

Here's one example: "为什么我的茶叶蛋没什么味道呢?"

 

So, if you really do mean "This soup is tasteless," in a literal sense, I would go for "汤没有味道。“ It would, however sound a little odd. If, instead, you mean it doesn't have enough salt, you need to say that. As @imronimplied, it's a different issue entirely. Recipes typically refer to that as 咸淡。

 

Should probably add, just for clarification, that Chinese clear soups often are very simple affairs. They are literally a green leafy vegetable plus water, boiled together. That's all; nothing added. Perhaps a tiny bit of salt. They take some getting used to.

 

I had such a soup on Saturday at a restaurant which made a big deal of growing all its own vegetables organically on a plot of private land several miles outside the city. And everything was freshly picked. What I had was kucai tang 苦菜汤。I was amazed by the clean and fresh flavor of the vegetable; I was pleased at how bright and refreshing the soup was.

 

But this soup was "watery" by western standards; it did not have a "full, well-rounded flavor." It wasn't made with a chicken broth or bouillon base and would not have passed muster in France, for example. But it worked perfectly with the other parts of the meal. It was made exactly right. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote

Imagine that you are at the restaurant, and you ordered some soup. When you taste the soup, the soup is tasteless (not enough salt). How do you say "This soup is tasteless" in Chinese, using the most common way to say it.

 

But if you are just arguing with a classmate about the best way to translate a textbook assignment, all bets are off. Might help to have some context for your question.

[陳德聰]

沒有什麼味道 is probably what I would say.

[pamunch]

using 淡 sounds the most natural when talking about soup without enough salt

[889]

To me, 太淡 sounds like something you can repair, as you reach over to the condiments tray.

 

But 沒有什麼味道 sounds hopeless; even a heavy dose of chili sauce won't fix it.

[Bobby小球酱]

这汤太淡了

[imron]

These pretzels are making me thirsty.

[skylee]

Consider 這湯淡出鳥來.

[陳德聰]

On 2017/5/14 at 5:58 AM, reinard_wu said:

using the most common way to say it.

 

[anonymoose]

I'm not a native Chinese speaker, so I may be completely wrong, but I don't think 这汤没有味道 has the same connotations as "This soup is tasteless".

 

The thing is, when we say something is tasteless in English, what we actually mean is that it is bland, and not literally that it has no taste at all. I'm not sure how 没有味道 would be interpreted by a native Chinese speaker, but I suspect it would more like "has no taste at all".

 

In the case of making 茶叶蛋, I think it would be appropriate to use 没有味道 if trying to say that the egg has not acquired any flavour of the tea.

 

But if we are using "tasteless" to mean the soup is bland, then I think 淡 would be a more appropriate word. 淡而无味 would also convey the same meaning.

[Sandro]

In my experience, meaning what I have encountered the most, I would also go for 没有味道，没什么味道。Other than what the person before me suspected,it doesn't really have the notion of there being no flavor at all, but is more used in the way of "too bland", "not enough salt" etc

[Wurstmann]

I asked my wife just now, and she says she would prefer 太淡了. But she can't say for what reason.

[imron]

Spoken like a true native speaker!

[Wurstmann]

Yeah, if she asks me something about German I often have to think about it for quite a while or search the internet for answers. ^^

[陳德聰]

淡 is simply a step on the way to 没什么味道, depends how badly you feel the food is "tasteless". Often, they are used in conjunction: 为什么我煮的汤一直太淡，没有味道？

 

淡到没味道

淡得没味道

etc

[Guest realmayo]

I know it's not strictly comparable but the 没什么味道 makes me think of 我没感觉.

[Kenny同志]

In colloquial Chinese, the most common way to say this is （這）湯太淡了. In written Chinese, I might go for something like （此）湯淡而無味.

[lips]

这白开水味道不错